Such is the education which nature gives her children, and we may add that another part of her discipline is, that by the course of things, children must exert all their muscular force, and employ all their ingenuity, in order to gratify their curiosity and satisfy their little appetites. What they desire is only to be obtained at the cost of labour, patience, and many disappointments. By the exercise of the body and mind necessary for satisfying their desires, they acquire agility, strength, and dexterity in their motions, as well as constitutional health and vigour; they learn to bear pain without dejection, and disappointment without despondency. The education of nature is most perfect in savages, who have no other tutor; and we see that in the quickness of all their senses, in the agility of their motions, in the hardiness of their constitutions, and in their ability to bear hunger, thirst, pain, and disappointment, they commonly far exceed civilized nations. On this account, a most ingenious writer seems to prefer savage to social life. But it is the intention of nature, that human education should assist to form the man, and she has fitted us for it, by the natural principles of imitation and belief, which discover themselves almost in infancy, as well as by others which are of later growth.
When the education which we receive from men does not give scope to that of nature, it is erroneous in its means and its tendency, and enervates both the body and the mind. Nature has her way of rearing men, as she has of healing their maladies. The art of education is to follow her dictates, and the art of education is equally to obey her laws. The ancient inhabitants of the Baleares followed nature in their manner of teaching their children to be good archers, when they hung their dinner aloft by a thread, and left them to bring it down: by their skill in the use of the bow.
The education of nature, without any more human care than is necessary to preserve life, makes a savage. Human education joined to that of nature, may make a good citizen, a skilful artizan, or a well-bred man; but a higher power is wanting in order to produce a Bacon or a Newton.
The error of the past system (for such I hope I may venture to call it) as to mental development was, that the inferior powers of the mind were called into activity, in preference to its higher faculties. The effort was to exercise the memory, and store it with information, which, owing to the inactivity of the understanding and the judgment, was seldom or never of use. To adopt the opinions of others was thought quite enough, without the child being troubled to think for itself, and to form an opinion of its own. But this is not as it should be. Such a system is neither likely to produce great nor wise men; and is much better adapted to parrots than children. Hence, the first thing attempted in an infant school is, to set the children thinking,—to induce them to examine, compare, and judge, in reference to all those matters which their dawning intellects are capable of mastering. It is of no use to tell a child, in the first place, what it should think,—this is at once inducing mental indolence, which is but too generally prevalent among adults; owing to this erroneous method having been adopted by those who had the charge of their early years. Were a child left to its own resources, to discover and judge of things exclusively by itself, though the opposite evil would be the consequence, namely, a state of comparative ignorance, yet I am doubtful whether it would be greater or more lamentable than that issuing from the injudicious system of giving children dogmas instead of problems, the opinions of others instead of eliciting their own. In the one case we should find a mind, uninformed and uncultivated, but of a vigorous and masculine character, grasping the little knowledge it possessed, with the power and right of a conqueror; in the other, a memory occupied by a useless heap of notions,—without a single opinion or idea it could call its own,—and an understanding indolent and narrow, and, from long-indulged inactivity, almost incapable of exertion. As the fundamental principle of the system, I would therefore say, let the children think for themselves. If they arrive at erroneous conclusions, assist them in attaining the truth; but let them, with such assistance, arrive at it by their own exertions. Little good will be done, if you say to a child,—That is wrong, this is right, unless you enable it to perceive the error of the one and the truth of the other. It is not only due to the child as a rational being that you should act so, but it is essentially necessary to the development of its intellectual faculties. It were not more ridiculous for a master, in teaching arithmetic, to give his pupil the problem and answer, without instructing him in the method of working the question, than it is for a person to give a child results of reasoning, without showing how the truth is arrived at. But some, perhaps, will be ready to exclaim, "Surely the teacher should not withhold the benefit of his knowledge and experience,—the child will have time enough to examine the merits of his information when he grows older and be more competent to do so!" To this I answer: in the first place, nothing should be submitted to the child which it is not fully competent to understand. To give the child tasks or subjects too difficult for its mental powers, is a violation of nature; and as foolish and detrimental as though you were to place a hundred pounds weight on its shoulders when it is incapable of supporting ten. The teacher's experience can only be of service to the child so far as it is applicable to its own state; and as to postponing the period when it is to think for itself, there is certainly no occasion for it. Nature has provided food adapted to the powers of the infant's stomach, and those who would rightly conduct the work of education, should imitate her in providing its intellectual food. That this may be done, I am attempting to shew in theory in the pages of this work; and, that it answers equally well in practice, any one who has a doubt, may assure himself by visiting any school conducted upon the plan here laid down.
The charge has been brought against the system, that we are not sufficiently anxious to teach the children to read. Now, though I may venture to say, that under no other plan, do the children acquire a knowledge of alphabetical characters, and the formation of words, so soon as under the present, yet I am quite ready to concede that I consider their learning to read a secondary object, to that of teaching them to examine and find out the nature and properties of things, of which words are but the signs. It is with things, and not words merely, we wish to make our children acquainted. If they first learn the nature and properties of an object, there is no fear of their afterwards inquiring its name; but we too frequently find, that having acquired names, they are indifferent to, and forgetful of, the objects represented.
Let children see and observe an object, and be taught the name of it at the same time, and then both are indelibly fixed on the memory. An infant at home is perpetually running around and looking at all things, and hearing persons speaking about them; it soon becomes acquainted with their names and properties, and then from time to time speaks about them. "Ah!" exclaims papa or mama, "What an old-fashioned child that is; one would wonder where it got such notions." A little thought and reflection would soon tell where, and this thought properly carried out would display an important fundamental principle in teaching the young mind.
Our first endeavour is, therefore, to excite a spirit of inquiry,—to foster that curiosity which is so natural to young children: till this is properly done, your information will not be well received, and it is most likely soon to be forgotten; but having once made them inquisitive, you are more likely to tire of communicating than they are of receiving. The skilful teacher will, indeed, rather leave them with an appetite still craving, than satiate them by repletion. I have frequently found the most beneficial results arise from the sudden cessation of a lesson or a lecture on an interesting topic. The children have looked for its renewal with the utmost impatience, pondering over what they had already heard, and anticipating what was yet to come with the greatest interest. Give a child a task, and you impose a burthen on him,—permit him to learn something, and you confer a favour.
Having excited a spirit of inquiry, the next endeavour is to direct it to proper objects. These, of course, will be things which relate to the senses of the child; the nature and properties of bodies, which may be ascertained by the application of those senses, &c. Having induced it to examine for itself, you are now to elicit its ideas of each object respectively; and having taught it to use its reason and judgment freely, and to express its own notions fearlessly and candidly,—you are to attempt the correction of what is erroneous, by putting forth your own views in as simple a way as possible: not so as to induce the child to give up its own opinions and adopt yours, but in such a way as to direct it to the attainment of truth; to induce a comparison between its thoughts and yours, and thus to discover its own error.
The powers of observation will speedily be improved under such a course of instruction, and in all the subsequent stages of existence, will not fail to constitute an independent and shrewd observer. But some may think we are straining the child's faculties by the plan recommended,—overstepping nature's laws,—and that the result must be detrimental to the child, both in mind and body. So far, however, is this from being true, that we have taken nature for our guide. We deprecate strongly, most strongly, that unnatural system, which gives children tasks so far beyond their powers, and for which their infantile faculties are not qualified;—we would lead them on in the path which nature has marked out—step by step—taking care that one thing should be thoroughly mastered before another is attempted.
The mental powers of children are far stronger than is generally supposed. No one who looks back to his early childhood, can fail of recollecting, that, at times, his thoughts would even then reach the very limits of human thought. All the powers of mind that are exercised in after-life display themselves in infancy, and therefore they all ought to be quietly and easily brought into exercise. This maybe done by any object,—even a toy. Were we to tie up several of our members so as to prevent their use, and at the same time exercise strongly those at liberty, bodily distortion must result. If we, in teaching, exercise the memory alone, and that merely with a knowledge of words and not of things, an absolute mental distortion must result, and the higher powers of reflection, judgment, and reason will remain weak, feeble, and deficient from want of exercise. When all the powers of the mind are brought out into harmonious action, the acquirement of knowledge be comes pleasurable. Knowledge is the proper aliment to expand and enlarge the mind, as natural food is for the growth of the body; and when such as is proper to the age and character of the recipient is selected, the one will be received with as much pleasure as the other. As the due exercise of every bodily power causes it to become strong, healthy, and vigorous, so the right and proper use of every mental faculty will, in the end, occasion it to become active, free, and powerful.